Kue's Ship
by tvfanfanatic
Summary: Set right after the finale. One of the Shannons' is not who they say they are. Very AU. Please review!
1. Chapter 1

Hello, my Terreeps! (My new name for you all : )

I am new to this place (Not FF but the TN part of it) and I couldn't wait to start posting. This is a little something I cooked up a while ago and just now got around to writing it.

This story is completely AU and mostly centered around one of the Shannons, not gonna tell you who until next chapter.

Good reading to everyone!

Disclaimer: I do not own Terra Nova *sighs*

The jungle chattered beneath us but we remained quiet as mice. Our old-fashioned binoculars hung from out necks, I had seen all that had needed to be seen. As for Kyle, well, he just wouldn't take my word on anything.

I finally decide to break the silence, "They have my ship."

"I know I've been kinda out of it the last few days, but I could swear that the plan was for them to have the ship. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong." Kyle glanced over at me before grabbing his binoculars and scanning the colony again.

I rolled my eyes, "Apparently you haven't been paying attention. The plan was for Merrale," I paused to gage his reaction to the name, "to have my ship."

"What's the big deal on this ship? It's not even the whole thing, just the prow."

"I have the rest back at Saratoga, besides, it's not the actual ship I care about. It's what is in the prow." I was starting to become very annoyed.

"And by the prow, you mean the weird mermaid-" One of those carno things screeched from under our branch.

I moved my pointer finger to my lips and Kyle nodded his understanding. After a few minutes of our slow breathing the thing went away.

"Why? Why send a ship to the badlands. You knew Taylor would… You knew a lot of things would happen. Why not just drop the thing off on Terra Nova's doorstep in the middle of the night?" I shook my head. No one would ever understand why I did what I did. I made sure my actions were like an unbreakable code.

The look he gave me said this wasn't over. _Better now then where someone else can put in his two cents, _I thought.

"Don't think all those jumpy, trigger-happy guards would appreciate that."

"What's in the prow?" One thing about Kyle Cunnings, he's persistent as hell.

I sighed, "In the wooden lady's head there is a chrono-ball. A chrono-ball that has important info on it."

He snickered, which scared me a little. Just a little. "One: Does Cameron know you have one of his multimillion dollar chrono's? Two: What kind of important info are we talking about?

"It's just intel that will help us move forward."

Something rustled the leaves in the next tree over and both of our heads looked in that direction.

"It may be a bug or the wind," he said, "keep talking."

"Yes sir! Oh, wait. I'm in charge!"

"You know what? Never mind. I don't need to know about whatever favors you fulfilled to get Cameron to hand over one of his prized chrono's. Just leave me out of it."

"So, you want to know all my secrets now? Got to warn you, haven't clean out the closet designated to my skeletons in a long time." Kyle swung his leg over the branch he was perched in.

"I thought we were staying all night," I said.

"There's nothing more to see here. The whole colony's asleep and the ship is locked up somewhere. Whoever is supposed to find the thing and make some connection to us is not going to do it tonight."

I had to agree. Nothing was going down in Terra Nova tonight.

We made it back to Saratoga at dawn. Our rover slipped into the gate and I hopped out.

"Welcome back!" Matt said. "We weren't expecting you until noonish," my annoyed look convinced him to wrap it up. "You're early."

"You done?" I asked.

"Yeah, no. Sorry. Um," he glanced down at his plex. "The Phoenix Group is settled in the badlands, according to Cameron." This caught my attention.

"You've been in charge for," I glanced at my watch, "a little over twelve hours." He nodded when I didn't continue. "Don't tell me you already sent someone out into the jungle to 'spy.' We agreed! No spying. We're not CIA anymore!" I sighed and looked at the jungle. "I mean, Cameron! Come on. I don't even think he can use a gun."

"Oh. No! He's in his office. He made a little robot that flies," he rambled on.

"I'm sorry. All those hours with Kyle and I just didn't know what to tell him," I looked at him for help.

"How'd he take seeing her?" Matt's usual deep blue eyes almost darkened.

"We only saw her for a moment. But in that time she managed to wreck all hope he had."

We started to move towards the tower that held my office and stepped onto the lift.

"She found someone else," he concluded.

"No," I defended. "Don't say it like that. She didn't break his heart, he broke hers'. He lied, she somehow mustered up the courage to move on. What if someone you love died? Would you pick up and move on? Or would you dwell?" I only stopped when the lift stopped on the third floor.

There were three towers in the center on the camp. One was the science labs, this one held five offices. The last held things we had brought from the future. Kind of like a museum to remind us of the joys the future had held. As well as the pains we had created in that period of time.

"He isn't dead!" Matt's sudden out burst brought me back to the right now. It also brought a few of the guards to maximum attention.

"Well he certainly made sure she thought he was. I don't blame her for leaving us. She found her real family and there were no longer ties holding her."

"Will she ever come back?" He approached the elephant, or dinosaur, in the room with shocking ease.

"I hope so," I confided. "We made a deal when she left. If she ever came back, she'd be head of the Jacks. Whatever was left of us."

"You would put her in charge of the Jacks?" I have to admit, when the plan is said out loud it sounds crazier than it actually is.

A/N Hope you like ;) Review please!

I am about 1/3 of the way though the next chapter, if you want one.


	2. Chapter 2

I walked into Cameron's office cautiously. _Man, this place gives me the creeps._

After taking a breath of the ridiculously clean air I yelled out his name. When no one answered I looked around the room. It was fairly large and was lined with metal shelves that held all sorts of odds and ins.

I ran my hand along the top shelf as I walked towards the huge white board covered in dry-erase marker. He had insisted on an old fashioned one as well as a digital one for backup. The white board was nothing special, but what was on it held far more value than any treasure on this world or the last.

One of the first things I had discovered when we arrived in this new world was the writings on the rocks near the falls. Lucas' writings.

His mathematical equations and formulas; it all made my head hurt. They were so complicated and contained symbols I didn't know the values to. But looking at Cameron's work now… I don't know why I was so impressed with Lucas' doodles.

Cameron's equations were written in his own numerical sequences because the old 1,2,3,4 system wasn't exact enough for him. I truly did have my own slice of genius living right by me.

"I have it all ready to go," Cameron said from behind me. I think I jumped three feet into the air.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Did I scare you?" His voice held an eerie calm.

"Yeah, just a little. And that was quick, you said it would be weeks." I pointed out as I took in his appearance.

His blonde hair was freshly showered and his clothes hung nicely on his physically fit frame. _At least he's not working himself to death like last time._

My eyes reached his face again to see that he was studying me, too. After looking me in the eyes for a few seconds he swiftly looked away to his computer.

He finally spoke, "No, I said that it would be a few weeks before we could get it to work. It only took a few hours to figure it out and, theoretically, we could fire it up right now." His voice was flat and monotone as he explained.

"Not that I don't appreciate your advanced expertise in this field, because I do. But don't you think that if we can 'theoreticall_y _fire it up now,' we should?" Nothing annoys me more than nerd-speak.

His face held a confused look as he moved his eyes up from the computer screen. "_You_, told _me_ that it would be 'a few weeks' before you revealed our existence to Terra Nova and consequently, Meralle."

Now it was my turn to look confused. "What the hell does Meralle have to do with you fixing our time fracture again?"

"Meralle holds the key to this formula," he stated simply.

"Really. That's what I get! 'Meralle holds the key to this formula'?" I was close to loosing it.

"Kue, with all do respect, would you understand me if I tried to explain it to you?"

I starred at the equation written in red marker on the board for a moment before answering, "No."

"I'm sure you are aware of how valuable my time is, now if you would please let yourself out. I have spying to do."

"You keep telling yourself that, Cameron."

Kyle was leaning against the wall on the right side of the door when I walked out of the office. One of his huge hands was holding an apple and the other was holding a cup of coffee. I didn't even have to be asked before I snatched it from him.

"And if I was going to drink that?" He asked with a chuckle. I let out the breath I had been holding. His eyes had that twinkle again, he was laughing, and he brought me coffee. We may not be out of the woods yet, but he wasn't going to mope around missing her like he had years ago.

"You don't drink coffee, remember?" I pointed out while we walked down the path to the infirmary.

"Devil's brew," he said under his breath.

"Now Kyle, as much as I would like to take credit for 'brewing' this coffee, I simple can't." I laughed. "Well, back on the subject of things that matter, what are we going to do about Meralle?"

"We could say hell with the whole thing and just stay here. They won't find us for a few decades without technical support from the future and we have all we need even if Cameron can't fix the portal." His voice held no emotion whatsoever.

"It's not that simple, Ky. You know that," I breathed.

"But it could be! You're an amazing leader, Kue. You set this place up and made it run like a well-oiled machine of nearly four thousand people. She couldn't have done that." Now he was frustrated and on the edge of anger.

I dropped the coffee and pushed him up against the nearest building, which happened to be the storage center in between towers 1 and 2. It was dark and shadowy and held a certain amount of creepiness.

"Listen to me, Kyle Cunnings. I'm not winging this! When she left she gave me direct instructions for running this place. She gave everything I needed and in return I swore that I'd never forget." I pulled up her dog tags that hung on the same chain as mine. "I'll be damned if I let anyone forget her sacrifices."

Kyle threw his apple core into the small garden area a few yards from us then looked at me. "I miss her everyday. Everyday I wonder why I did what I did. But somewhere up the line I decided that I wasn't going to play 'what if' games. I made my decision and I'm trying not to regret it. I'm just afraid- when she sees me what is she going to say? 'God, I missed you Kyle! I can't believe you're alive. This is great!' No. She's going to hate me." He took a much-needed breath and I waited. "I'm going to hate me," he finished.

"Kyle, I haven't been completely honest," I sighed heavily. "When I walked her to the Chicago train- we were waiting by the tracks and she looked at me and said, 'I don't want you to think that this is because Kyle died, Kue.' She said, 'I've helped you as far as I could without crossing that line; the line between here and an amazing new world. But I have the same problem I had when we first hatched this crazy plan four years ago. Once I go to the past I can't come back here, at least, there isn't a guarantee I can. If this was just about Kyle, I'd stay, because we both know he isn't really dead. His ego wouldn't allow it.' And then she hugged me and got on the train. I never saw her again until the 10th pilgrimage came in."

"Why'd you lie?" He asked with that even voice of his.

"I thought you'd do something stupid if you thought for a moment that she was waiting on you. I couldn't risk it," I confessed.

"You did the right thing, Kuesy. Wouldn't dream of holding it against you."

We started walking again until we reached out destination. The steps to the infirmary were lined with flowers and shrubs of all sorts. They were kept neatly trimmed by one of the doctors that had a gardening fetish.

I must have been staring at the tulips because Kyle cleared his throat and motioned to the opened door.

Inside, the technology was pristine. Bio-beds lined each wall of the main room, an ER was located to the left, and a mini lab was accessible through the door to the right. Fifty doctors and nurses kept our little community healthy.

_Speaking of doctors, _I touched a nurse on the shoulder and asked for Doctor Weston.

"She's over there," the blonde nurse pointed to the far corner of the room.

"Thanks," I say before I walk over to Camille.

"Hey, Cami, how's our patient?"

Camille looked up from the Bio-bed holograph and closed the screen with the settings. "Sorry, these things have to be recalibrated every few weeks. Um, the patient, right. Are you referring to the woman with food poisoning, the man who shot himself in the ass, or the five-year-old with skinned up knees because she doesn't know what 'don't run on the concrete' means?" Cami sent a disapproving look at her own daughter Katie, who was sitting on a bed with white bandages on her knees.

I sent Camille a look, which she returned with a cocked eyebrow. "Ok, I give, how is Lieutenant Washington doing?"


	3. Chapter 3

A/N It has just occurred to me that I haven't disclaimed previous chapters. So… I disclaim.

It had been three weeks since our last visit to Terra Nova and I, for one, was getting anxious. Plans had been made and then tossed out and then remade until we all agreed on what we were doing. Only one person was upset, and his opinion doesn't really matter to me right now.

"All I'm saying is that there can be four people in that rover and I don't want to be one of them," Kyle said in an annoyed voice.

"You're the only one that's been inside the gates and if things go south, I will need your help," I reasoned with him.

"I was inside for five seconds, enough to grab the Lieutenant and get out. I jumped through a hole in the fence, grabbed her arm, and teleported here. I can't help you in there."

I decided the best way to end this conversation was to ignore him. So I did just that.

The infirmary was busy being prepped incase someone from Terra Nova had to come here for medical support. Each cart had a full stock of everything from anti-histamines to antibiotics and was placed by a Bio-bed. Every nurse and doctor we had was in that room but I couldn't find the one I needed. _Damnit! It's things like this that make me nervous. _

I glance at my watch. 5:30 A.M. and we had to leave by 6. I don't have time to wait, so I go talk to the patient personally.

I walked up to a woman who had her back facing to me. She had long brown hair and was no longer wearing a hospital gown, but jeans and a dark blue tank top. "Lieutenant?" I asked just loud enough to be heard over the buzz of the infirmary.

The woman jumped slightly and then turned to look at me. Her face held hard features and she looked to be in her mid-thirties.

"Yes, Ma'am?" She responded calmly even though I could swear I heard her heartbeat over all the noise.

"Don't do that," I grimaced.

"Do what," she wondered in a confused voice.

"Call me Ma'am. I'm not even the real boss around here, just kind of temperately in charge. Everybody here calls me Kue, or Kuesy."

"Sorry, it's just the military in me. Are we really going to Terra Nova now? Do I get to see them all again?" This was truly the only time I had ever heard her get really excited about anything.

"Um, yeah, but only if I can find Cam and clear you medically," I reminded her.

Right on cue, Camille walked through the doors and over to the bed. "I have had one helluva day and something's telling me it's about to get worse."

"I know the feeling. Remember, when we get there the first thing I'm going to do is try to reestablish the fracture so we can teleport. If I do this, you are the first one through. Got it? Get a bag ready with everything you need because there will probably be some sick people."

"Yeah," Camille said quickly. "I'll be ready; just radio me."

I turned to Lieutenant Washington, "Is she clear to go?"

"Yep, a trooper this one is," Cam said with a smile as Wash dropped her head down.

"Okay," I said gratefully. "Let's roll."

The ride was a long one, 12 hours. Normally we would have just used our sinkers to teleport but the explosion that wiped out the time-fracture also ruined our wave-something-or-other and stopped that convenient zapping from one place to another.

"This blows," said Kyle dramatically after we had been driving for about six hours.

"Pshh, like you would know," I snorted. Wash laughed, Cameron looked confused, and Kyle turned his head to look out the window.

Four hours later and it was getting dark but we were only ten minutes from Terra Nova.

"Hey Kue, might be a good idea to slow down so they don't think we're sneak-attacking them." Kyle said from the backseat. Lieutenant Washington backed him up on this claim even though she didn't need to; I knew what I was doing.

I slowed down considerably then said, "We'll be there in a few minutes. Cameron, do you have what you need for this teleportation device to work?" I glanced back to see Cameron look up from his plex.

"Yeah, I have everything," he assured me, then went back to whatever he was doing before.

As we broke through the brush I couldn't help looking at Lieutenant Washington. Her face went pale as she took in the broken fence and the other visible damage.

I reached over and put my hand on her shoulder, "It will be okay. We will fix this." The Lieutenant simple nodded in response.

We came to a stop by the wall. Commander Taylor was on the other side of the gate with quite a few other gun-toting guys behind him.

"It's now or never," I said to no one in particular.

"I choose never," Kyle replied softly.

I snickered, "Don't worry, I won't let her kick your ass too badly."

With that, I slowly got out of the rover. "Commander Taylor," I acknowledged politely.

After I got out so did everyone else. I watched Taylor's face carefully to gage his reaction to his Lieutenant. But as it turns out, I didn't need to watch. Everyone gasped as she exited the rover.

What happened next had always confused me; they saluted. Kyle walked up next to me and asked, "Why don't we do that? I mean, I'm second in command so everyone would have to salute me."

I raised an eyebrow, "Yeah, except for me."

He contemplated that for a moment, "You're right, it's a stupid idea."

"Who are you," asked Taylor me. He was now done with the salute thingy.

"My name is Kue. This is Kyle," I nodded my head towards him. Then I pointed to the other side of the rover, "That is Cameron, my techie."

"Why are you here," he asked in a patient voice.

"Other than to return your fine Lieutenant to you? Well, let's just say that this 'war' favored us more than it favored you. We have food, water, medical supplies, everything. Just tell me what you need." I tried to sound as sincere as possible so that he didn't spook.

Taylor thought about that for a minute. Then he finally said, "I don't suppose you'd tell me where exactly you reside, but could you tell me how far it is?"

I tried not to laugh, "It's about a twelve hour drive."

"Depending on whose driving," Kyle said under his breath.

I was about to smack him when a woman in her early forties rushed through the crowd of soldiers. She had long black hair and was wearing a lab coat. Even though she was relatively young she looked very aged. One more thing I noticed; she looked exactly like Meralle.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: This one is extra long to make up for the time I haven't updated.

Thank you for the reviews, keep 'em coming!

"You said you have medical supplies?" The woman asked in a rush. By now, the soldiers had sent the crowd away and she was the only civilian in sight.

"Yeah, but not with us. My head doctor has the infirmary stocked up and her teams are prepped. Just tell me what you need."

"There is a patient, a little girl, she needs a drug that I ran out of a while ago but she won't make it twelve hours. At best, she has an hour left," her voice was thick with panic.

I turned to Cameron, " How long will it take?"

"Ten minutes, flat," he said confidently. "I can even do it right here," with that he disappeared into the rover to retrieve a duffle bag.

"I can't do this," Kyle moaned as he took a few steps back, covering his face with his hands.

I grabbed his arm and pulled him closer to me, "You _will_ pull yourself together." I was going to continue threatening him but Cameron climbing onto the rover caught my eye. I sent him one last look before I went up to the gate to talk to Taylor again.

"We have a portal that can take us back to our base," I explained. "It will take him ten minutes to reopen it but we need your help."

"I won't allow this," said Taylor. "You just show up out of nowhere and expect me to help you? What if there is an army on the other side of that portal?"

The woman spoke up again, "You can't _not_ do this! That little girl will die without help."

The only man in plain clothes touched her arm gently. "Elizabeth," he started, but she cut him off.

"No, Jim, what if that was Maddy or Zoe or Josh? You can't do this!" Elizabeth was close to tears and I knew that I had to find a solution.

When the rover had approached the gate I was in the market with Zoe. She wanted a red ring and I reminded her that her birthday was coming up and maybe she should wait. She had sighed deeply before muttering that she agreed.

I had paid for the apples and was beginning to walk home when soldiers started coming from everywhere and formed a semi-circle around the gate. The colonists whispered amongst each other for a few seconds before the off-road vehicle came into view. After they caught sight of that, they immediately silenced.

I turned to Zoe and told her to keep moving to the house. She opened her mouth to protest but then decided not to and promptly closed it and kept waling.

Once we were in the house, I told her to put the food away and lock the door after me. Again, she thought about protesting but didn't.

When I stepped outside I wasn't surprised to see the crowd. Instead of fighting it, I went to the Bio-labs. The first one had an observation deck that housed a small telescope.

I wasn't surprised to see the lab empty because of the ordeal outside. But even though they were outside now, the soldiers would probably usher them in soon.

From the observation deck I could see that there where five people outside the gate: Lieutenant Washington, Kue, Cameron, and Kyle.

Kuesy was by the gate talking to the Lieutenant and Commander Taylor. Cameron was on top of the rover holding something up. He had an interesting duffle bag by his feet.

Then there was Kyle. He was pacing near the back on the rover, in jeans and a plain, grey V-neck tee.

He looked good, very good. In fact, they all looked good. Well fed, even had a little muscle. Okay… Kyle and Kue had a little muscle-Kyle a little more than Kue. While Cameron was lean and pretty fit; you wouldn't be able to see any muscle under his long sleeves and jeans. _Entomophobia, _I scuffed.

That's when it hit me; they had made without me. This shouldn't have come as a surprise; they are probably the smartest and strongest people I know. But looking back at it, all we had been through, it was nothing short of a miracle.

I had used my overwhelming charm to convince the good Commander to let us open the portal outside the gate. Of course the convincing testimony from the now undead Lieutenant didn't hurt.

He did have one condition; whoever was helping us had to go in and get the medicine.

"You ready?" I asked Cameron, who had recently gotten off the rover.

"Yep, do you have her tags?" He asked, motioning to my neck.

"Yeah," I drew out, not sure where this was going. I pulled my chain out from under my shirt and handed him Maralle's tags.

He took them without even a "thanks" and pressed the button to display the information. A few clicks later he was on a password screen.

"And here's where it get interesting," he breathed. "You wanna do the honors?"

"You need her for a password?" I asked confused.

"Yeah, the key to my equation is in an encrypted part of her data. Only her password can get in, and since only she knows the password" he drifted off.

This made no sense to me. Cameron designed these tags, he should be able to hack them-wait-he wouldn't. He was too smart and too afraid of me; or maybe that was the problem.

I turned to Kyle, "Remind me to kill him."

Someone snickered from the other side of the gate, "You put the fear of God in him last time he hacked someone's tags- your tags. Told him never to do it again."

I had put the fear of God in him that hot summer night- and that's saying something because he's atheist.

"I believe you were afraid of him finding those revealing pictures you had taken the night before at that party. You knew that he would mess up and tell Ian," Meralle continued.

"As I recall, you were on those pictures, too. Dancing with every guy in the place; you even threw back a few shots of vodka," I reminder her. She had also made the fake IDs and gotten us into the party.

"The difference is I could afford to loose more brain cells at fifteen than you will be able to loose ever," she shot back and I turned to Kyle for help. Then I remembered, he wasn't going to say anything against her.

She must have noticed because the next thing out of her mouth was directed at him. "Say something, Ky, I dare you."

"I'm good, you two just duel it out," with that he took a few steps out of the line of fire.

Mr. Shannon finally got out of his daze and asked, "Maddy what is going on?"

'Maddy' ignored him and looked at Cameron, "The password is 'loochuhu mineos.'" _Forever Lovely._

"Kilianan," he said as he typed it in. "Nice, that way no one but a Jack would guess."

"Yeah, Cam, I know why I chose it."

I grabbed the radio and called for Camille to be ready with the right dose of meds and then went to talk to Meralle for a few minutes while he clicked away on the lazar keyboard.

"So… How have you been?" I asked.

"Bored out of my mind," was her response.

Then Mr. and Mrs. Shannon walked over to talk to her.

"Maddy, how do you know they people?" Her dad asked with no regard to me.

She put on her innocent voice, the one that had gotten us out of so much trouble as kids and promised to tell him everything later.

"We are locked and loaded," Cameron called. He then put his little drive on the ground and pressed a button. A huge circle of pink light formed and started swirling around.

"I thought these things were blue?" Meralle asked.

"I added a color option one day, I was bored without my chess partner," Cameron explained sheepishly.

"I'll play with you sometime. Maybe even tonight," she promised.

We had slowly made our way to the gate and she was standing right by Commander Taylor.

"You are not doing this, Maddy! I forbid it," her father yelled.

I stepped in, metaphorically, "This was your one condition, Taylor. Stay true to it."

"Ok, raise the gate just high enough for Miss Shannon to go under," he hollered at the tower guard. "I'm sorry, Jim."

The gate was loud and slow to rise but when she could fit she did. The first thing she did was hug Cameron.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Lieutenant Washington step under the gate and shake hands with her Commander.

The pink portal loomed ahead of me, waiting for me to step in. I heard Kue say something into the radio and then I felt the world shift.

Instead of grass under my feet it was sand. _Magnified sand,_ my memory said.

When my hearing returned I heard clapping, and lots of it. There was a circle of people around me, all of them cheering and clapping for me. That's when I knew I was home.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Just another one I wrote.

I looked around slowly, but I didn't need too. I knew exactly where every thing was.

Right now I was in the far corner of the tenth block, right outside the infirmary. Above me, the four main towers stood high and proud over the entire city of Saratoga. We had named it that because just like the Battle of Saratoga was the turning point in the Revolutionary War, this place was the turning point of history. The name had been Matt's idea.

_I rushed through the door; "They just got the information from the probe back, no butterfly affect."_

"_That's amazing," Cameron muttered from the table. He was looking at a complex equation on his white board._

"_You stumped," I asked him, already knowing the answer._

"_Nope, just prolonging the inevitable. This is the last equation in the book I got last week and I was trying to make it last. I don't know what I was thinking, anyone who looked at this could tell that _a _equals the square root of _ _times 4."_

"_Yeah, that's common knowledge," said Kue from a dark corner of the room. She was watching some old movie on her plex._

"_So you see my problem," exclaimed Cameron, oblivious to her sarcasm._

_I made eye contact with him and we stayed like that for a few minutes. "I'll clean the white board, you grab the jumper and the coffee," he finally said._

_I went to the closet to get the jumper and then went to the small kitchen to retrieve the much needed coffee._

_I put the jumper on the table and turned it on. The jumper was a small box that projected holograms. It could be used to display charts, blueprints, and graphs. We were going to use it to make a map._

"_Let's start from the bottom an work our way up," I suggested, handing him his coffee._

"_Okay, for a foundation we have rocks, mulch, asphalt, cement…" he started writing these down hastily with a red marker._

"_I like sand," I put in._

"_Sand could be thrown or kicked up by vehicles," he countered._

"_Yes, but it's soft and could be easily cooled. Besides, we could magnetize it. Weak enough so that it will shift but strong enough to make it impossible to pick up," I explained._

"_I like that idea, add it to the jump," he said while he erased the words he had written._

_I pressed in a few commands and then the whole field was covered in sand._

"_We are going to need one huge fence to protect us," I stated the obvious. _

_Cameron fell into deep thought, "Something easily moved around so that we can expand."_

"_Blick rope," I provided. Blick rope was made of this super fabric that was wound into rope. Under the right conditions it became unbreakable. Take those circumstances away and you had a couple dozed miles of rope that could be wound into spools._

_He nodded his approval, "Next, buildings. Let's work it from the inside, out."_

"_Four tall buildings, one on each corner of diamond. I want this one," I made a tower on the jump, "to be the tallest. It will house the leaders' offices. We will address the public from a balcony." I put it a balcony then three other buildings._

"_One will be the school, the science labs, and the food labs," Cameron continued, almost reading my mind._

_Kue interrupted from her corner, "Food labs?"_

"_You give me a cow's genetic information and I can make you a hamburger in a petri dish," I told her confidently._

"_With cheese and pickle," added Cameron from the white board. _

"_That sounds scrumptious," she lied._

"_Please stop distracting us," Cameron said in a polite voice. "Now, if you are going to address the public they need stairs to assure everyone can see you. I could program the sand to do that."_

"_Slope down, not up," I remind him. "In fact, I'll just put all four buildings in a pit with stairs around them."_

"_Excellent idea; what about housing?"_

"_Stick with four buildings in each lot, one in each corner. Each building will have five houses stacked on top of each other. The houses should have four bedrooms, a kitchen and a living room among other things. In the center of the towers, there can be a communal yard." I took a deep breath after my long suggestion._

"_This is going to be revolutionary. I can see it all now," he sounded in love._

This seemed like only weeks ago but, in truth, it had been nearly four years.

We were all seventeen now, so much older and still just as stupid as that first night.

So much had happened since then. Kyle had 'died.' I left. It was amazing that we were here now.

It had all started when I was kidnapped at six months old by a group of Russian scientists. Well, I can say with a degree of certainty that the scientist didn't kidnap me. The small, trigger-happy army they had on hand kidnapped me.

That same army kidnapped Kue from South America, or what was left of it. They took Cameron from France and Matt was 'donated' to the 'cause.'

The facility was our home for ten years. We were trained to be killing machines, literally. My love of science was fostered in the labs where they taught me to make toxic gas. Everyone had martial arts training but Kue had the most. Cameron had so many foreign languages shoved down his throat that he still mixes up his German and English. Matt's specialty was battle tactics, even to this day he is the best.

We probably would have been little robots if these scientists had been psychologists. They didn't realize that bringing in a kid from the outside when we were eight was a bad idea. Greed got the best of them; the kid was excellent at math and could solve equations like crazy.

He was fourteen at the time and we quickly learned from him all about the outside world. He secretly taught Cameron math and I still remember when he taught us all how to play chess. His name was Cody and he died helping us escape.


End file.
